Challenging Cuts to Health and Social Care

This paper provides an overview of recent caselaw regarding cuts to health and social care.

It has been difficult, over the last couple of years, to escape repetitive references to the need to cut public spending. Perhaps inevitably, the cuts have affected health and social care services, although in England the squeeze on local authority budgets has meant that social care has, so far, faced the pinch far more than the NHS. Carers, patients, and voluntary sector organisations have all felt the impact of these cuts, and are increasingly turning to the law in a bid to halt the worst effects. In this workshop we will look at how the Courts have dealt with such challenges in England over the last few years, by focussing on four cases, in four different contexts, which raise a number of key issues that can inform a discussion as to how such decisions can be challenged.